Elizabeth Castelli writes, "As the year 2000 approaches, new religious movements proliferate offering visions of the cataclysmic end of history and promising the inauguration of a new era of peace and justice. These movements have a long history in the intellectual currents of the west, and their competing narratives of violence and redemption invite a closer look." Elizabeth Castelli is Assistant Professor of Religion at Barnard College/Columbia University, a specialist in biblical studies and the religions of late antiquity.